his reality has him moving center while his image has him moving Left.

The corollary to that is that Obama's failures (whether electoral or governance) will be attributed to an excess of liberalism-- i.e., the left will take the fall without having our policies tried in any thorough-going way.

Obama convinced the anti-war and liberal/progressive left that he was their guy.  Now whiplash gives pain to this base as day by day, reality dawns on them and they are stuck with him...as are we all.

Still, his  most rabid supporters, the true believers, insist that he's a secret liberal!  No wonder he's stuck with that label for the general election.  He cultivated it to beat Clinton.

But this is what troubles me. As BTD writes:

"All the while, Obama has argued vigorously for virtually no substantive policy, other than sticking to his plan to withdrawal from Iraq. He could become an 'Authentic Liberal' President with no mandate to do anything actually liberal."

I keep wondering what people who are excited about an Obama presidency expect him to accomplish. What policies are his priorities? We know he'll readily compromise, but which stands on issues are non-negotiable for him? Any? What is his bottom line?

How can people be enthusiastic about a candidate whose positions and core beliefs are so nebulous?

I'm not positive but didn't he also vote for the Patriot Act?

Where as: McCain, in spite of his right wing voting record, is seen as this maverick that defies party lines. (Even though he caved to party pressure on immigration, taxes and torture).

He has trapped himself into a corner. If he attacks McCain he looks like just another partisan politician. If he doesn't attack he looks week.

Real liberals don't spend months "uniting" with the hard right as a power ploy. He's damaged liberal causes irreparably with his months of fomenting sexism and trivializing bigotry against groups (of all creeds and colors) who suffer racism, but now it's only Obama who "suffers".

His frivolous use of racism as a cudgel for personal gain will be his undoing.

And yes, he's arrogant. Shame on his supporters for pretending that the criticism is racist in nature, when Obama's campaign has been littered with sleazy examples of it.

Arrogance is saying, without irony on the Daily Show, that his rival (who was running neck and neck with him at the time) was giving him a good workout and was like Spring Training for him.

Misogynistic "Liberal" Jon Stewart admiringly gushed over this sincerely sincere moment from Obama and didn't call him out on the vomitous arrogance of this, cause bigotry against women is okay if you have a black BFF or are black yourself.

This true blue liberal has no guilt about what this campaign has devolved into: Dems tossed me out, TeamO says voters like me aren't necessary, Rahm says stay home blah blah blah.

I'm no longer involved in this travesty except to point out: Obama is NO LIBERAL.

I remember 1980. Reagan did not run on feel good homilies like "lets all get along" "lets end partisanship" "civility". He ran on ideas like shrinking govmt, ending regulation, cutting taxes, increasing defense spending, ending welfare. He launched an all out partisan attack on Democrats and demonized liberals.

McCain did similarly in the primaries, only in the opposite direction -- he was widely perceived as too moderate for the rightwing base, and spent the primaries tacking rightward.  Now that he won the nod, he's betting that most people will still think of him as the moderate, and ignore a lot of what he said and did to win the primaries.  And he seems to be right, since he spend decades cultivating the moderate, party maverick brand, most polls show that people still think of him that way, in spite of his primary campaign.

Obama, however was too much of an unknown prior to the primaries, to most Americans anyway.  So he was defined during his fight with Clinton, and a lot of people formed their first, strongest impressions of him -- and this was as "more liberal than Hillary Clinton".

Now -- outside of the blogosphere -- what is the opinion of Hillary Clinton?  She's been branded as a liberal, over and over, by the rightwing press.  For two decades.

So Obama comes to the general election fight as the "Democrat who was more liberal than the very liberal Hillary Clinton".

This will make it hard for him to recapture the moderate image from McCain, since he doesn't have the long history of branding that McCain does.

Reagan did it by polarization and demonization.  

Remember "welfare queens"?

Reagan implemented a very conservative agenda not by getting along with Democrats but by; 1)defeating them 2) demonizing them 3) threatening to campaign in their districts if they did not cooperate.

Hillary took general election positions during the primaries. She did not want to flip flop after the primaries. It hurt her with some voters during the primaries but it would have helped her in the general election.

This is the big lie by the media that a lot of voters have bought into.

The idea that you bring about meaningful change by being non partisan, non confrontational.

Truth is the opposite. Presidents who push through major change embrace partisanship and conflict.

As for Obama, he has become what Yglesias says is the least desirable, his reality has him moving center while his image has him moving Left.

For months the left's wishful thinking has moved Obama's image to the left, even though he has always been centrist, with the exception of his war stance in 2002. They hung a lieral label on him basedon that. Now the Republicans have done the same thing they do with every Dem candidate, which is paint his as a raging liberal, despite the facts.

Don't get me wrong, I think it's possible to get of Iraq pretty quickly, and I also think that big majorities of the American public would be happy to get out.  But, obviously, majorities in the Village and in Congress (including Democrats, as is evidenced by all the votes they have taken WITH Democratic majorities) either don't want to get out, or don't want to "expend the political capital" to get out.

When Snow White & the Seven Dwarves stepped onto the stage at Orangeburg, SC, April 26, 2007, there wasn't a "liberal" in the lot.

Now the term is being used to describe Democrats who are somewhat to the left of Genghis Kahn & very much to the right of Jimmy Carter.

In any event, it's interesting to look up the ratings & labels by the major interest groups. Here's the list from Electoral Vote.com (link):
The eight groups used in this study are:
ACLU - American Civil Liberties Union
ADA - Americans for Democratic Action
CDF - Children's Defense Fund
LCV - League of Conservation Voters
NAACP - National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
NARAL - National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League
PTA - National Parent-Teacher Association
SEIU - Service Employees International Union

And, the winner is . . . Sen. Barack Obama!!!  He & his immediate colleague from IL, Sen. Durbin, & Sen. Harkin, IA, all share the 98 score.

It won't make any difference who is the president.

Bush tax cuts will expire and Congress will not renew it no matter who is the president.

Pls remember tax cuts were passed by Congress.

Only Congress can cut taxes.

Tax cuts are expiring. If Dems are still controlling Congress they will expire regardless who is president.

McCain might even raise taxes.

He starts by misstating -- and then thoroughly mis-applying -- the median voter theorem (which doesn't apply anyway in the context under discussion) ... and goes downhill from there.